


The things you see will make cruel sense, all too soon

by One_Day



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, in which severa figures out absolutely nothing and everyone is dissatisfied (i'm sorry), introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 01:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Day/pseuds/One_Day
Summary: She wants, but not like this.





	The things you see will make cruel sense, all too soon

The first time Severa presses her palm to Lucina’s bare collar, she doubts. 

 

The first time, it is so dark that neither of them can really do much but fumble about, try to see with their hands as if their eyes had never known light, a challenge they have no choice but to take. A challenge that they have yet to become completely accustomed to. One Severa doesn't know if they ever will.

 

And though she can’t make out the line between the tan skin at Lucina’s neck and the paler skin below, Severa is struck by how thin the princess is in her arms, all sharp angles and hollow dips. Hardly more than wiry muscle stretched tight over bone.

 

There is no room under Lucina’s skin for dreams. Severa wonders how there is even any space at all for love, for this thing they have between them could be called love, but if it is, it is a sickly, fragile love. Perhaps that is why Lucina can tuck it into the shallow grooves of her scars and carry it with her when any others would only weigh her down. 

 

Unlike her partner, Severa is built wider, doesn’t turn to profile and become paper, so there is storage enough for things like fire and unnecessary bluster. The art of ill-timed sarcasm is one she has down pat. Strange, in a world where soldiers hardly have enough time to master the sword before they end up dead. Severa thanks every god that she doesn’t believe in for her good fortune.

 

Maybe the oddest part about this is that lying next to Lucina, Severa thinks about the end of the world. She also thinks about what it would be like to see her blue hair fan out behind her head instead of darkness, but just two years ago she would have been mortified to know she was thinking about the inevitable apocalypse while sleeping with Lucina.

 

She thinks she wanted this. She does -- is reminded of it in the reassurance of Lucina’s thigh warm against her own, but not when the fingers that slip across her stomach are as much a shock to her as a bucket of ice water to a drunk man. She wants, just not quite like this.

 

In another world, there would have been fireworks.

 

But this isn’t that world. This is one that sucks dreams from children in their sleep, robs them of their parents like some adult’s bogeyman, and returns only the howl of wind through the dark. In this world, Severa fears sleeping any way but upright, with a sword in her hand, lest what remains of her hopes tumble out and disappear with no one to catch them.

 

Here, she stops and combs the day’s first rays of sunlight from Lucina’s hair with her fingers. Lucina would have done this for her once, but clothed, and with tenderness rather than uncertainty. Lucina would have told her stories about heroes and kings, and though Severa would declare them silly out loud, she would peek through her eyelashes as the blue haired girl fell asleep and think that this is a true hero king. This is what the fairy tales mean when they talk of princes who slay dragons. If only -- if only the bards and storytellers could have known Lucina, then they would’ve had something to  _ really _ sing about.

 

But instead, Lucina stumbles. She tilts Severa’s head back too far and fits their lips together in a way that could never be comprehensible. Her crown and sword lie cast aside. She doesn’t look like much of a princess anymore, but for the glint in her eye. Severa only remembers because she has sworn herself to remember. Yet like everything mortal, memory fades with time (she prays, and prays, and prays to be anything but mortal. Maybe things would be different, then. Maybe she would have been strong enough to end all this fighting before it even started).

 

In lieu of an answer, voices whisper behind her ears, “This is not a hero king.”

 

“Hero kings do not whisper into the dark, ‘Show me, please’. 

 

They do not rasp out, ‘Teach me how to believe.’”

 

“Hero kings do not  ask for hope.”

 

Lucina does, now. The redheaded mercenary pictures her -- Lucina’s gaze searing in its desperation, what with the way her long fingers press into Severa’s and her breath warms the chill air between them -- and wonders when they had left behind their talk of running away as fugitive princess and loyal knight. (It was silly; it was impossible, but at least the dreams were something to hold back the night).

 

Severa thinks that the voices might be right. She thinks that really, there is nothing separating a king from a pauper when all his riches are stripped away, but maybe riches are just another kind of junk, or emptiness, things to count and fill the space between you and everyone else. Things to pretend are yours but which only drag you down in the end.

 

She thinks and thinks, desperately like a prayer, until she can hardly hear through the chorus, and she puts a stop to both, hoping to end with it those awful voices who speak nothing but half-truths, because she has always hated half-truths.

 

Suddenly she feels an acute emptiness. Funny how she still feels loss after all this time, when she cannot bring herself to even believe anymore. She feels so much, filled past overflowing with anger and disappointment and her childhood happiness, which perhaps brings her the greatest anguish of all and takes over everything, that she can’t help but think: she  _ is _ wretched and godless, and oh, how she  _ wants _ to believe.

 

If not for herself, then for Lucina. Beautiful, strong, awkward Lucina who always knew what to say and how to lead, who in this moment is both solid enough to be present, but miles away. 

 

Severa swallows past the tightness in her throat.

 

Then Lucina asks her again, that question about hoping and believing, furrowing her brow until she looks almost childlike, and what Severa wants to say is I will follow you, I will follow you to the ends of the earth and back. No matter what.

 

Instead, she pushes back the hair matted to her forehead and hesitates. Instead, she says, “It will be morning soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm back and not any better of a writer, but at least i motivated myself to touch up this old draft to post here?


End file.
